899 entries categorized "Africa"

May 18, 2016

Al Jazeera reports one of the 219 schoolgirls abducted in Chibok in northeast Nigeria has been found, the first breakthrough since their seizure by Boko Haram more than two years ago, according to the army and activists. Tsambido Hosea Abana, a Chibok community leader in Abuja from the BringBackOurGirls pressure group, said on Twitter on Wednesday that the girl was found by civilian vigilantes in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state the previous day. Yakubu Nkeki, head of the Abducted Chibok Girls Parents' group, and Ayuba Alamson Chibok, a community leader in the town, also gave the same account to AFP news agency.

May 16, 2016

The New York Times reports a Swedish court convicted a 61-year-old man on Monday for taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and sentenced him to life in prison. The case was noteworthy for being part of a transnational effort to hold people accountable for crimes against humanity, no matter where those crimes occurred. The Stockholm District Court found that the man, Claver Berinkindi, a Rwandan who obtained Swedish citizenship in 2012, had participated in five massacres between April 18 and May 31, 1994. In the hills of Nyamure, he rallied people to participate in the killing of thousands of civilians. He was also involved in the deaths of hundreds of people who had sought refuge in a municipal building in the town of Muyira and in an adjacent adult education center. Trapped in the compound, hundreds of people were massacred.

BBC News reports Nelson Mandela's arrest in 1962 came as a result of a tip-off from an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a report says. The revelations, made in the Sunday Times newspaper, are based on an interview with ex-CIA agent Donald Rickard shortly before he died. Mandela served 27 years in jail for resisting white minority rule before being released in 1990. He was subsequently elected as South Africa's first black president. Rickard, who died earlier this year, was never formally associated with the CIA but worked as a diplomat in South Africa before retiring in the late 70s.

May 12, 2016

The New York Times reports the Kenyan government has announced that it plans to expel hundreds of thousands of refugees, a move that aid agencies say would violate international law and endanger many people. For years, Kenya has threatened to shut down the Dadaab refugee camp, where hundreds of thousands of Somalis have been marooned for decades. A sea of tents and plastic shelters spread out across miles of desert near the border with Somalia, the camp has become essentially one of Kenya’s largest cities. On Wednesday, the Kenyan government said that terrorists were using Dadaab as a hide-out.

April 18, 2016

BBC News reports Ethiopia's army is trying to rescue 108 women and children abducted in a cross-border raid in the western Gambella region, the government says. It blamed Friday's raid, in which 208 people died, on the Murle community from neighboring South Sudan. The government said the army has killed 60 of those who carried out the attack. The Murle have previously been accused of carrying out cattle raids and stealing children to raise as their own. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said in an address to the nation on Sunday that Ethiopia was seeking permission to cross the border for a joint military operation with South Sudan.

April 12, 2016

Al Jazeera reports Boko Haram child "suicide bombings" have surged elevenfold in West Africa in the past year, with children as young as eight, mostly girls, detonating bombs in schools and markets, a leading charity has said. One in every five "suicide bombers" used by Boko Haram in the past two years has been a child, a report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, said. Suicide bombings have spread beyond Nigeria's borders, with an increasing number of deadly attacks carried out by children with explosives hidden under their clothes or in baskets.

April 08, 2016

The New York Times reports of all the many horrors of Boko Haram’s rampage across West Africa — the attacks on mosques, churches and schools; the mass killings of civilians; the entire villages left in ashes after militants tear through — one of the most baffling has been its ability to turn captured women and girls into killers. Boko Haram, one of the world’s deadliest extremist groups, has used at least 105 women and girls in suicide attacks since June 2014, when a woman set off a bomb at an army barracks in Nigeria, according to The Long War Journal, which tracks terrorist activity.Since then, women and girls, often with bombs hidden in baskets or under their clothes, have killed hundreds of people in attacks on fish and vegetable markets, schools, a river dock and even camps for people who fled their homes to escape the violence.

April 06, 2016

The New York Times reports the International Criminal Court dropped its case against the deputy president of Kenya, William Ruto, on Tuesday, marking another setback for the court and ending a long, tortuous case that tangled Kenya’s relations with the West and rearranged Kenyan politics. A divided panel decided, 2 to 1, to vacate the case against Ruto and a prominent radio host, Joshua arap Sang. The two men were charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the 2007-8 postelection chaos in Kenya that left more than 1,200 people dead and many others wounded or raped, and forced about 600,000 to flee. The chief judge, Chile Eboe-Osuji of Nigeria, declared a mistrial “due to a troubling incidence of witness interference and intolerable political meddling.”

April 05, 2016

Al Jazeera reports three Congolese peacekeepers accused of sex abuse in the Central African Republic have appeared before a tribunal in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The three men - from the UN's MINUSCA peacekeeping mission - are the first troops to be prosecuted in the scandal, which has seen more than 100 victims come forward with accounts of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers and French forces. The tribunal is being held in Ndolo, a military prison north of the capital, Kinshasa.

April 04, 2016

The New York Times reports the United States military has transferred two Libyan detainees to Senegal from its wartime prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, government officials said on Monday, the first time Senegal has resettled a Guantánamo prisoner. The men had been imprisoned without trial for about 14 years, and their transfers reduced the detainee population at the prison to 89. Secretary of State John Kerry thanked Senegal for taking them. He reiterated the Obama administration’s arguments that the prison should be closed because it is costly and fuels anti-American sentiments abroad.

March 21, 2016

Al Jazeera reports the International Criminal Court has found former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Central African Republic more than a decade ago. The verdicts announced on Monday focused on the responsibility of a military commander for the actions of his troops, as Bemba was accused of commanding a militia that went on a spree of murder, rape and pillage. The charges - two of crimes against humanity and three of war crimes - stem from his private army's intervention on the side of CAR's then-president Ange-Felix Patasse in the neighbouring country's civil war. Bemba's long-running trial was the first at the ICC to feature allegations of systematic sexual abuse by soldiers in a conflict.

March 15, 2016

Reuters reports al-Qaeda's North African branch said its attack on a beach resort in Ivory Coast on Sunday that killed 18 people was revenge for a France's offensive against Islamist militants in the Sahel region and called for its forces to withdraw. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve arrived on Tuesday to reassure the large French community and boost the investigation into the attack in Grand Bassam, in which four French citizens died. Three Ivorian special forces personnel were killed and three of the attackers were also among the dead. The statement by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was posted on the group's social media accounts on Monday.

March 14, 2016

The Associated Press reports the attack on an Ivory Coast beach resort by an al-Qaida affiliate is the latest sign it is shifting its focus to soft targets associated with foreigners in an effort to destabilize economies and gain the group credibility among jihadis in its rivalry with the so-called Islamic State group. The three gunmen who burst into the Grand-Bassam beach resort and killed 18 people were part of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a group that grew out of the Algerian civil war in the 1990s and used to restrict itself to operations deep in the desert, hundreds of miles away. In recent months, however, it has carried out devastating attacks against luxury hotels frequented by foreigners: first in Mali in November, then in Burkina Faso in January, and now even farther south in an Ivorian resort popular with tourists and locals alike.

March 01, 2016

Al Jazeera reports a Malian man has attended a hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to assess if evidence against him is strong enough to merit making him stand trial for his involvement in destroying historic sites in Timbuktu. Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi is the first person to appear in front of the prosecutors at the ICC for planning, directing and participating in attacks against religious monuments in the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu in the summer of 2012. ICC prosecutors are building the case against Mahdi on Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which states that the destruction of historic buildings without reason is a war crime.

February 29, 2016

The New York Times reports two popular restaurants in a regional capital of Somalia were hit by suicide bombings on Sunday afternoon, killing at least 20 people and injuring at least 60 others, witnesses and officials said. The Shabab, an Islamist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attacks in the city of Baidoa, the capital of both Somalia’s Southwest State and the Bay Region. Witnesses said that a car bomb exploded outside a restaurant across from the Hotel Baidoa around 5 p.m., a time when people gather after work. The restaurant’s outdoor cafe, frequented by government workers and business people, was crowded. The bomber was killed in the explosion.

February 26, 2016

The New York Times reports the Pentagon is poised to send dozens of Special Operations advisers to the front lines of Nigeria’s fight against the West African militant group Boko Haram, according to military officials, the latest deployment in conflicts with the Islamic State and its allies. Their deployment would push American troops hundreds of miles closer to the battle that Nigerian forces are waging against an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians in the country’s northeast as well as in neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon. By some measures, Boko Haram is the world’s deadliest terrorist group.

February 22, 2016

The New York Times reports the Islamic State’s branch in Libya is deepening its reach across a wide area of Africa, attracting new recruits from countries like Senegal that had been largely immune to the jihadist propaganda — and forcing the African authorities and their Western allies to increase efforts to combat the fast-moving threat. The American airstrikes in northwestern Libya on Friday, which demolished an Islamic State training camp and were aimed at a top Tunisian operative, underscore the problem, Western officials said. The more than three dozen suspected Islamic State fighters killed in the bombing were recruited from Tunisia and other African countries, officials said, and were believed to be rehearsing an attack against Western targets.

February 18, 2016

BBC News reports militant Islamist group al-Shabab has denied that its intelligence chief has been killed in a Kenyan air strike in southern Somalia. Mohammed Karatey and 10 other al-Shabab commanders were killed in the strike on 8 February, the Kenyan army said. He played a key role in last month's deadly attack on a Kenyan military base in neighbouring Somalia, it added. But al-Shabab, which is part of al-Qaeda, said Karatey was alive and there had been no attempt on his life. Kenya was only trying to win public support for its military campaign in Somalia by alleging he had been killed, a spokesman for the group said on local radio.

February 04, 2016

Reuters reports Congolese troops killed two United Nations peacekeepers after civilians accused the Tanzanian U.N. troops of providing supplies to Islamist Ugandan rebels in east Congo, according to a confidential U.N. Security Council report. U.N. experts who monitor sanctions on Democratic Republic of Congo said the U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO initially blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Ugandan rebels operating in Congo since the 1990s, for a May 5 ambush that killed two peacekeepers and several civilians and injured 26 U.N. troops.

January 28, 2016

The New York Times reports on Thursday, Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast, will go on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, facing four counts of crimes against humanity stemming from the violence surrounding the 2010 presidential election. He was narrowly defeated in a runoff, but he insisted that he had won and refused to cede power, leading to months of turmoil and the deaths of more than 3,000 people before his arrest in April 2011. He is the first former president to reach trial at the tribunal, which has been in operation for a decade with a mandate to deal with war crimes and genocide.

January 26, 2016

Reuters reports Kenyan soldiers have abandoned a camp in the southern Somali town of El Adde following an attack by al Shabaab, a military spokesman said, and the islamist militants said they had taken full control of the base on Tuesday. The Kenyan troops, part of an African Union (AU) force in Somalia (AMISOM), took heavy losses when al Shabaab launched a dawn raid on the camp near the Kenyan border on Jan. 15. David Obonyo, spokesman for the Kenya Defence Forces, said the troops had vacated the camp, and were now stationed nearby. Al Shabaab, which has links to al Qaeda and seeks to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed government, said it had killed more than 100 soldiers in the attack.

January 15, 2016

The New York Times reports al-Shabab militant group said on Friday that it had overrun an African Union base in a village in southern Somalia and killed dozens of peacekeepers. Residents described what appeared to be a suicide car bombing, followed by a ferocious firefight that lasted at least five hours. The African Union confirmed an attack on its troops. But central details, including the identity of those killed, were not immediately clear. Sheikh Abdulaziz Abu Muscab, a spokesman for al-Shabab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, said the group had killed 63 Kenyan soldiers at the African Union base near the village of El-Adde and had seized ammunition and military vehicles.

December 10, 2015

BBC News reports one of the last suspects wanted for alleged involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide has been arrested in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN says. Ladislas Ntaganzwa, 53, is accused of organizing mass rapes and the massacre of thousands. The U.S. has issued a $5 million reward for his arrest, calling him "one of the main instigators of the genocide." Ntaganzwa and his lawyers have not commented on the allegations. Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Hassan Bubacar Jallow told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio program that Ntaganzwa was "a big fish," even if he was not the most senior person to have been caught.

December 04, 2015

Reuters reports the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria said on Friday it had received information that groups "associated with terrorism" may be planning attacks against hotels in the country that are frequented by Westerners.In a brief message for U.S. citizens, the embassy said it had no further information regarding the timing or method of any planned attacks. "The U.S. Mission advises all U.S. citizens to be vigilant when at hotels and around areas frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers ... locations where large crowds may gather; and government facilities," the statement said.

November 20, 2015

BBC News reports suspected Islamist gunmen who stormed a hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, have "no more hostages", officials say. The Radisson Blu Hotel was stormed by special forces after gunmen entered it and seized 170 people, many of them foreign guests. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its offshoot al-Murabitoun said they carried out the attack, according to an agency used by jihadists in the region. An unnamed UN official has said at least 27 people have been killed. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 12 bodies were found in the basement and 15 bodies were found on the second floor.

The Washington Post reports after Islamist militants stormed a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital and took hostages on Friday, Malian Special Forces were called upon to respond. And in the middle of it all were two members of U.S. Special Operations Command, who escorted guests from the hotel to safer locations. The rescue mission came after gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, a city of about 1.8 million people in the southwestern part of the country. It is within a few hundred miles of several other U.S. military partners in western Africa, including Senegal, Liberia and Guinea.About 25 U.S. military personnel were in Bamako when the hotel was attacked, according to two U.S. military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. At least six U.S. citizens were rescued from the scene, according to a tweet from U.S. Africa Command.

November 12, 2015

Reuters reports the United Nations, African Union and European Union warned on Thursday that political division in Burundi threatened to create a deep and violent regional crisis and called on both sides to meet for mediated talks. "Alarmed by the widening divisions, the threat for many more lives and a deep regional crisis, we pledged to work closely together and to mobilize all our means and instruments to prevent a further deterioration of the situation," senior officials of the three bodies said in a joint statement. U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, who met EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and African Union Commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma at an EU-Africa summit on Malta, told Reuters that the institutions were not setting deadlines for talks but wanted to "raise the level of concern".

November 02, 2015

CNN reports gunmen stormed a popular hotel in Mogadishu on Sunday after opening their attack with multiple blasts, Somali officials said. At least 15 people were killed, medical and police officials said. Islamist militant group al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate, claimed responsibility for the attack via a Somali radio station run by the group. Many of the dead were civilians, said interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Yusuf Osman, who was at the attack site, the Sahafi Hotel. The armed men pushed inside the building, then Somali special forces deployed to fight the militants.

October 29, 2015

Reuters reports the United States has transferred Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz, a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison, to Mauritania, the Pentagon said on Thursday. It said in a statement a review board that examined security issues and other factors unanimously approved Aziz's release from the prison where the United States detains terrorism suspects from around the world. "The United States is grateful to the Government of Mauritania for its willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the statement said. It said the United States coordinated with Mauritania to ensure the transfer "took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures."

October 14, 2015

BBC News reports U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that US armed forces have been deployed in Cameroon to help fight against the Islamist militants Boko Haram. The force, which will be 300 strong, will conduct airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations in the region. Cameroon and Chad have been targeted by the Islamist militants from northern Nigeria. Obama said they will remain in Cameroon until "no longer needed."

October 01, 2015

The New York Times reports prosecutors have for the first time brought a radical Islamist to the International Criminal Court, accusing him of destroying ancient religious monuments in 2012 when his extremist group overran Timbuktu in northern Mali. Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a citizen of Mali, was handed over to the court last weekend and made his first appearance Wednesday before an international judge. The prosecution described Mahdi as a “zealous member” of Ansar Dine, an Islamist extremist group linked to al-Qaeda. It said he played a “predominant and active role” in Timbuktu as the head of a self-appointed morality squad, working in conjunction with a new Islamist court.

September 28, 2015

BBC News reports a German court has sentenced two Rwandan rebel leaders for masterminding attacks on civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni were accused of ordering militias to commit mass murder and rape between 2008 and 2009. The trial took place under a law which allows the prosecution of foreigners for crimes committed outside Germany. It was hailed as a breakthrough in bringing Rwandan rebels to justice. Murwanashyaka, who is the leader of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), was given a 13-year sentence, while Musoni, his deputy, was sentenced to eight years.

September 01, 2015

CNN reports Boko Haram militants have unleashed another torrent of violence in northeast Nigeria, killing 79 people in three recent attacks there, residents and local militia said. In the first and deadliest attack late Friday, gunmen entered the village of Baanu -- about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state -- and shot dead 68 people. The gunmen seemingly shot indiscriminately, spurring survivors to run for their lives into the bush, according to residents. The next attack happened around 2 p.m. Saturday in Hambagda village in Borno state's Gwoza district, 80 miles from Maiduguri. Militants, again on horseback, unloaded on worshipers at a mosque -- leaving seven dead and five more wounded, locals and militia leaders said. Another attack about five hours later in in the village of Karnuwa, which is close to Baanu, resulted in the deaths of the village's imam, his son and two neighbors.

August 26, 2015

Reuters reports Islamist al Shabaab militants killed at least seven people including a regional official and local police commander in an attack on a government convoy in southern Somalia on Wednesday, officials and the group said. Al Shabaab attacked the convoy between Garbaharey and Baladhawo towns in the Gedo region, near the Kenyan border. The al-Qaeda-allied group frequently launches attacks on officials in its bid to topple the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam on the nation, which is struggling to rebuild after two decades of war.

The New York Times reports the South Sudan government spent $20 million last summer on weapons including machine guns and grenade launchers from China, while rebels procured ammunition made by their onetime rivals in neighboring Sudan, according to the United Nations, fueling a war in which villages have been razed and women reportedly raped. The Security Council, which is considering a draft resolution that would impose an arms embargo, threatened Tuesday to take unspecified “immediate action” if the president, Salva Kiir, failed to sign a peace accord Wednesday as he has promised.

August 20, 2015

Al Jazeera reports the U.S. is proposing that the UN Security Council impose an arms embargo on South Sudan after its leader surprised rebels and observers by refusing to sign a peace deal. The U.S. circulated a draft resolution to council members on Wednesday evening, and diplomats said they expected a vote very soon. Earlier on Wednesday, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir told US Secretary of State John Kerry that he would sign a peace deal to end the 20-month-old conflict, a state department spokesman said. "President Kiir assured the secretary that he has every intention of signing the peace agreement," spokesman John Kirby told reporters after Kerry called Kiir.

The New York Times reports behind high metal gates at the edge of town, the migrants wait their turn, not daring to leave their mud-brick compounds — the final staging post before the perilous trip across the Sahara and the sea beyond. Even neighborhood children know where they are hiding. The migrants already bear the wounds and scars of the arduous trip, pulling up the legs of their trousers to show where they had been kicked and beaten by the police, all along the line, from Senegal to Mali to Burkina Faso to Niger. Now they have placed their lives in the hands of local “connections men,” smugglers who arrange the next leg of the dangerous passage, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

August 19, 2015

BBC News reports as many as 60 people may have been killed after a raid on a village in the north-east by suspected Boko Haram militants. The attack on Kukuwa in Yobe state happened last Thursday but details have only just emerged from survivors. Some of the villagers are said to have drowned while fleeing gunmen. The BBC's Nigeria reporter says the fact it took five days for any news to come out shows how dire the security situation is in parts of Yobe state. A military spokesman said that following air surveillance and armed reconnaissance, the reports of a massacre and drownings could not be substantiated. A regional military offensive has weakened the Islamist group in recent months but parts of north-east Nigeria, such as Yobe and neighbouring Borno state, are still extremely insecure.

August 18, 2015

The New York Times reports at first, Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum tried to get help from his own government, lobbying the National Security Council to intervene as a Taliban offensive began making serious inroads on his home territory, a once relatively quiet northern region of Afghanistan. But after months of mostly fruitless pleading, Dostum — a feared former warlord who had brutally fought the Taliban and also provoked some of the worst excesses of the long Afghan civil war — turned back to his roots. Activating a collection of private militias in addition to some Afghan police and army units, he went charging up north in July. Dostum’s actions have been publicized here as the bravery of a battle-hardened general. But in what is supposed to be a year that tests the ability of the Afghan security forces to fend off enemy threats on their own, his moves have also raised a serious question: Amid a territory-gobbling insurgent offensive, will the strongmen and former warlords prominent in the Afghan government honor the national security system, or will they remobilize militias that in the 1990s caused the chaos that gave rise to the Taliban in the first place?

August 12, 2015

Reuters reports the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic has resigned after a fresh round of allegations of sexual abuse and excessive use of force by peacekeepers, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday. "Today I have accepted the resignation of my special representative Mr. Babacar Gaye, head of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, MINUSCA," Ban told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. Gaye, a general from Senegal, submitted his resignation at Ban's request. The announcement comes after Amnesty International accused MINUSCA peacekeepers of raping a 12-year-old girl and killing a boy and his father during an operation in the country's capital Bangui this month. Ban said Gaye worked "so honorably" for many years but he wanted to "to show a strong example." He plans to brief the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

BBC News reports the Nigerian-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram has a new leader, Chad's President Idriss Deby says. He did not say what had happened to Abubakar Shekau, but said he had been replaced by Mahamat Daoud - who has not been heard of before. Shekau has not featured in the group's recent videos, leading to speculation that he has been killed. Deby, whose troops have been involved in battling Boko Haram, said Daoud was open to dialogue. The BBC's Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says that last year, the Chadian leader was said to be brokering peace talks with Boko Haram. But the negotiations never happened and were widely seen as a sham so some analysts will question how much credence to give to Deby's latest comments about the jihadist group.

August 10, 2015

BBC News reports a UK court has rejected a bid to extradite Rwanda's spy chief to Spain to stand trial for his alleged role in massacres after the 1994 genocide. Karenzi Karake was on bail in the UK following his arrest in June on a warrant issued by Spain. His arrest strained diplomatic relations between the UK and Rwanda. A Spanish judge indicted Gen. Karake in 2008 for alleged war crimes. The UK ruling has been welcomed by Rwanda's Justice Minister Johnston Busingye. Gen. Karake had been the victim of "an unjust case", he said. Rwanda's Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said she was "delighted" that Gen. Karake was returning to Rwanda. "This was an unnecessary and abusive process," she said in a tweet.

July 23, 2015

The New York Times reports the United States has unintentionally helped Boko Haram militants by refusing to arm Nigerian security forces who are fighting the Islamic extremists, President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria said this week. Two days after meeting with President Obama at the White House, Mr. Buhari said on Wednesday hat his country’s security forces were “largely impotent” in their fight against Boko Haram, and he put the blame on an American law that blocks assistance to foreign security forces that are accused of human rights abuses. The application of the law “has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorists,” Mr. Buhari said in a speech to the United States Institute of Peace. He said that the allegations of human rights violations against Nigerian forces were unproven, and that restrictions on military aid have “denied us access to appropriate strategic weapons to prosecute the war against the insurgents,” according to a transcript posted on the institute’s website.

July 22, 2015

BBC News reports Somali forces backed by African Union troops have retaken one of the last remaining strongholds of Islamist militant group al-Shabab. Kenyan and Somali government soldiers entered south-western Bardere town, which has been under al-Shabab control since 2008, backed by heavy weapons and air support, residents told the BBC. A Somali army commander told the BBC troops took the town without a fight. Pro-al-Shabab media have also confirmed the loss of the town. The al-Qaeda-linked group is battling Somalia's government for control of the country. A drone strike in the same town last week killed two al-Shabab commanders, residents said.

July 21, 2015

Reuters reports President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Tuesday that improving security cooperation and trade links between Kenya and the United States will top the agenda when U.S. President Barack Obama visits the east African nation this weekend. A key Western ally in the battle against the spread of militant Islam out of Somalia, Kenya's security agencies receive training and equipment from United States, Britain and Israel. Yet over the past two years Kenya has suffered a series of major attacks by Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, including a massacre in April of 148 people at a Kenyan university near the Somali border. The violence has hurt Kenya's tourism industry, vital to east Africa's biggest economy, and has piled pressure on Kenyatta to improve security. Obama's two-day is due to start late on Friday.

July 20, 2015

Reuters reports when Barack Obama visits Africa this month, he will be welcomed by a continent that had expected closer attention from a man they claim as their son, a sentiment felt acutely in the Kenyan village where the 44th U.S. president's father is buried. "We thought the American government could at least bring some assistance to the area," said Stephen Okumu Obewa, a teacher in Kogelo village who works at Senator Barack Obama Primary School, named before Obama reached the White House. "Maybe he is interested somehow but we are not aware," he said in a scruffy school with many broken chairs and desks. Obama wrote about a visit to Kogelo in his 1995 book "Dreams from My Father", which helped launch his swift political ascent. Many Africans wonder why Obama has not made development on their continent more a priority in his two terms in office.

July 13, 2015

BBC News reports Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed new defence chiefs after sacking the heads of the army, navy and air force. The sackings were expected as the president has repeatedly criticised the military's inability to defeat Islamist group Boko Haram. The Islamists have recently launched a series of deadly guerrilla attacks, killing more than 250 people. Boko Haram is thought to be responsible for more than 10,000 deaths since 2009. Both the new head of the army, Maj Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai, and the National Security Adviser, Maj Gen Babagana Monguno, are from Borno State which is at the heart of the conflict. BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says the hope is they have a good grasp of what is needed to end the violence.

July 10, 2015

Al Jazeera reports car bombings have struck two hotels in the Somali capital Mogadishu before gunmen entered one of the hotels and started shooting, sources told Al Jazeera. At least five people were killed at Hotel Weheliye in central Mogadishu on Friday, the sources said. Three gunmen wearing government army uniforms entered the building as guest inside were breaking their fast, observed by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. The gunmen were believed to be holed up inside the hotel, which is owned by Somali MP Isse Weheliye, the sources said. The second hotel that was attacked is located in the same central district. A spokesman of armed group al-Shabab told Al Jazeera that the group's fighters were behind the attacks.

July 09, 2015

The Associated Press reports Nigeria's Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist has told The Associated Press. The activist said Boko Haram's current offer is limited to the girls from the school in northeastern Nigeria whose mass abduction in April 2014 ignited worldwide outrage and a campaign to "Bring Back Our Girls" that stretched to the White House. The new initiative reopens an offer made last year to the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan to release the 219 students in exchange for 16 Boko Haram detainees, the activist said. The man, who was involved in negotiations with Boko Haram last year and is close to current negotiators, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters on this sensitive issue.

July 07, 2015

BBC News reports French special forces have killed a militant Islamist in Mali who was said to have been freed in exchange for the release of Frenchman Serge Lazarevic. Ali Ag Wadossene, a senior member of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was killed in northern Kidal city, a French army statement said. Two other militants were captured in the operation, it added. France sent troops to Mali in January 2013 to prevent the militants from over-running the capital, Bamako. Lazarevic was abducted by AQIM in 2011 and freed last December. Wadossene and another militant, Heiba Ag Acherif, were jailed in Mali for allegedly being involved in his abduction. Mali's government confirmed at the time that Wadossene was one of four militants who had been freed in return for Lazarevic's release.